Three Principles for Victory

Moral and strategic clarity, along with the imperative for victory over terrorism are the necessary values for winning this war.

January 4 - The United States will complete its victory over terrorism if it continues to adhere to the three principles it has established to win this war.

First is moral clarity. In his historic speech before the US Congress, President George W. Bush boldly declared that nothing justifies terrorism. No grievance, whether real or imagined, can ever justify terror. Terrorism - the deliberate and systematic targeting of civilians, as opposed to the unintentional civilian casualties that are the tragic consequences of justified warfare - must be seen, like Nazism, as an unmitigated evil.

This clarity is essential in fighting terror because it denies the terrorists their main weapon: the moral equivocation of many of their victims who, facing an unremitting propaganda campaign aimed at justifying terrorism, are duped into believing that there is some justice behind terrorist demands and that therefore these demands must be at least partially met.

Second is strategic clarity. Today, the US understands that the best way to defeat terror is not to concentrate on bringing individual terrorists to justice, but rather, to destroy the regimes that support terror. Terrorist organizations are not suspended in mid-air. They train their operatives, indoctrinate their recruits, and hatch their plots from territory sheltered by certain regimes. Take away the support of sovereign states, and the entire scaffolding of international terror collapses into the dust. American power topples the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and the al-Qaida network there crumbles on its own. The United States must now act similarly against the other terror regimes - Iran, Iraq, Arafat's dictatorship, Syria, and a few others. Some of these regimes will have to be toppled, some of them punished and deterred. But all must be made to understand a simple message: surrender terrorism or surrender power.

The root cause of terror is not despair, but a totalitarian mindset that believes that anything is justified to achieve its ideological ends.

Third, the imperative of victory. The United States understands that the best way to defeat international terror is to defeat it. This is no trivial statement, for there are those who believe that the root cause of terror is despair, and that the best way to fight terror is to replace this despair with hope. But the United States has now taken a completely opposite view. The best way to eradicate terror is to sow despair among its adherents, and to destroy all hope that the terrorists will achieve their objectives by resorting to terror. Just as any victory for terror emboldens the entire terror network, the defeat of terror in any part of the network devastates the confidence of potential terrorists everywhere and diminishes their ranks.

Indeed, the root cause of terror is not despair, but a totalitarian mindset that believes that anything is justified to achieve its ideological ends. Worse, the more brutal the means that must be employed to achieve those ends - blowing up children, destroying skyscrapers and, if necessary, annihilating entire cities - the more glorious those ends become in the twisted minds of these fanatics. This is why from Lenin to Hitler to the ayatollahs, terrorism has been indispensable to totalitarianism. That is also why, in countless struggles for liberation carried out by people with a democratic mindset, such as the French resistance against the Nazis or the struggle for civil rights in the United States, terror was never used.

But a totalitarian mindset is only a necessary condition for the practice of terror. What must also be present is hope. The more that hope grows, the more emboldened the terrorists become and the more new recruits will flock to join them. This is why the sense of inevitable victory over terrorism is so crucial to this struggle.

The effect of these three principles has fundamentally changed the geopolitical reality in Israel's favor. Moral clarity will make it increasingly difficult for our enemies to justify the terror unleashed against us in the courts of public opinion. Strategic clarity has given us a freer hand to dismantle Arafat's terrorist regime.

While the threat of his regime's collapse has forced Arafat to take steps to escape imminent danger, this is only a temporary, tactical measure. To fully restore our deterrence and pave a road toward a peaceful future, we must make any potential Palestinian leadership understand that they will pay the heaviest price for waging a terrorist war against Israel. The imperative of victory must teach us that the way to reverse the tide of terror that has engulfed our country is to defeat it decisively. The notion that Israel's war on terror will be served by offering Arafat a state is absurd. Such a step will only create a sovereign terrorist fortress in the heart of the Middle East.

All free societies must continue to adhere to these three principles if we are to prevent the demons that lurk in the dark recesses of mankind from obtaining the power to destroy our civilization.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 5

(5)
Gerald Dashkin,
January 9, 2002 12:00 AM

great wisdom-no action

Netanyahu has been displaying his great wisdom about terrorism for many years but when he was in power he failed to eradicate terrorism in the land of Israel.He is a great wordsmith but that is as far as it goes!

(4)
Anonymous,
January 7, 2002 12:00 AM

Talk about clarity!

I couldn't agree more with the statement and philosophy that, "the best way to defeat international terror is to defeat it. This is no trivial statement, for there are those who believe that the root cause of terror is despair, and that the best way to fight terror is to replace this despair with hope." I, and I think others, are just tired about hearing how September 11 is somehow OUR fault. Hopefully, others in the US will start to understand how this is analogous to Israel and that bargaining with Arafat is like fast forwarding twenty years, and bargaining with Osama.

(3)
,
January 7, 2002 12:00 AM

Distribute to local presses in USA

This important piece deserves wide distribution in local daily newspapers throughout the USA. Can I e-mail it to my local newspaper?

(2)
Judith Sinclair,
January 6, 2002 12:00 AM

A Fresh New Idea

Perhaps Egypt may be inspired to offer the "Palestinians" some Arab territory in the Sinai. Perhaps the UN will chip in and perhaps Arafat will release some stashed-away money to create a state in the Sinai called "Palestine". Pass it on.

(1)
augustine johnson,
January 6, 2002 12:00 AM

excellent

excellent comments by the elequent netanyahu....also congradulations on the capture of the ship with all the explosives headed toward the palestinians to use in their terror....shalom.....

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I've been striving to get more into spirituality. But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I started. I'm getting discouraged and feel like a failure. Can you help?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Spiritual slumps are a natural part of spiritual growth. There is a cycle that people go through when at times they feel closer to God and at times more distant. In the words of the Kabbalists, it is "two steps forward and one step back." So although you feel you are slipping, know that this is a natural process. The main thing is to look at your overall progress (over months or years) and be able to see how far you've come!

This is actually God's ingenious way of motivating us further. The sages compare this to teaching a baby how to walk. When the parent is holding on, the baby shrieks with delight and is under the illusion that he knows how to walk. Yet suddenly, when the parent lets go, the child panics, wobbles and may even fall.

At such times when we feel spiritually "down," that is often because God is letting go, giving us the great gift of independence. In some ways, these are the times when we can actually grow the most. For if we can move ourselves just a little bit forward, we truly acquire a level of sanctity that is ours forever.

Here is a practical tool to help pull you out of the doldrums. The Sefer HaChinuch speaks about a great principle in spiritual growth: "The external awakens the internal." This means that although we may not experience immediate feelings of closeness to God, eventually, by continuing to conduct ourselves in such a manner, this physical behavior will have an impact on our spiritual selves and will help us succeed. (A similar idea is discussed by psychologists who say: "Smile and you will feel happy.")

That is the power of Torah commandments. Even if we may not feel like giving charity or praying at this particular moment, by having a "mitzvah" obligation to do so, we are in a framework to become inspired. At that point we can infuse that act of charity or prayer with all the meaning and lift it can provide. But if we'd wait until being inspired, we might be waiting a very long time.

May the Almighty bless you with the clarity to see your progress, and may you do so with joy.

In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

If you seize too much, you are left with nothing. If you take less, you may retain it (Rosh Hashanah 4b).

Sometimes our appetites are insatiable; more accurately, we act as though they were insatiable. The Midrash states that a person may never be satisfied. "If he has one hundred, he wants two hundred. If he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred" (Koheles Rabbah 1:34). How often have we seen people whose insatiable desire for material wealth resulted in their losing everything, much like the gambler whose constant urge to win results in total loss.

People's bodies are finite, and their actual needs are limited. The endless pursuit for more wealth than they can use is nothing more than an elusive belief that they can live forever (Psalms 49:10).

The one part of us which is indeed infinite is our neshamah (soul), which, being of Divine origin, can crave and achieve infinity and eternity, and such craving is characteristic of spiritual growth.

How strange that we tend to give the body much more than it can possibly handle, and the neshamah so much less than it needs!